Nation needs a president with resolve

Sunday

Dec 29, 2013 at 6:00 AM

WASHINGTON — President Obama fired off a bombshell at an impromptu news conference yesterday in the Oval Office by disclosing that in the long history of the nation, there has been only one recorded instance of an American ever making a New Year's resolution.

It happened at a hastily-organized meeting with the press, the last one scheduled in 2013 by the White House. A Washington Post reporter known for his hardball questions asked Obama, "Mr. President, sir, I wonder if you would, in the spirit of the season, reveal your own New Year's resolutions?"

The President seemed happy with the question. With his characteristic self-confidence, he replied, "It may interest you to know that according to the Department of Strange Circumstances, an agency of the Census Bureau, the concept of making resolutions for one's conduct in a new year is not only a myth but, in fact, has happened but once in our entire history as a nation."

He continued, "My administration has conducted a lengthy and comprehensive investigation of this matter, and I am announcing today that the only known example of anyone ever making pledges to improve his personal conduct in the year to come was a gentleman named Horace J. Horsefly, who lived in Crabapple Creek, Kentucky, between 1856 and 1901."

Gazing surreptitiously into teleprompters surrounding the podium, the President revealed that Horsefly, whom he identified as an itinerant who shod horses for a living, interestingly enough, listed his "resolves to live a more pious and wholesome life in 1893" in a letter he wrote to the editor of the Crabapple Creek Courier & Gazette on Dec. 27, 1892.

"That being the one and only example in history of someone making New Year's resolutions," said Obama, "I do not believe it behooves me, your humble servant, to waste anyone's time hearing my own suggestions for my personal improvement."

The White House press corps was abuzz immediately. Hands were raised by almost everyone in the room, all intent on following up on the surprise announcement. The President held up his own hands, as if in mock self-defense.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "let us please try to conduct ourselves with at least a modicum of self-restraint."

A reporter for an internet blog no one in the room had ever heard of before got to ask the next question. "But what will we have to write about over the next week if it is indeed true that nobody — you or anyone else — gives a fig about New Year's resolutions, with all due respect, your eminence?"

"I'm afraid I can't help you there, Phil," the President joked. "I just wanted you to know that this administration deserves some credit for getting to the bottom of what you folks in the media have always given such a high priority."

Someone in the pack yelled out, "Thank you, Mr. President." and the room resounded with the clatter of closing notebooks.

Halfway between the podium and the exit door, the President tossed out one last morsel: "I do have one secret resolution — to treat the press that covers the White House just as brutally in 2014 as they have always treated me."